Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/403

356 left undone to destroy it, the swamp itself is, probably, the healthiest spot in America. Its delicious juniper water prevents malaria more effectually and perfectly than the famed eucalyptus of Australia. The flying game of the continent centres in this region, and the lake in winter is the best shooting ground in the country. Now that wealthy clubs and individuals are buying up the coast shooting, this incomparable natural preserve ought to be secured for the nation or the State.

Its original undoing was probably some accident or cataclysm of nature, changing a water course or opening a crater-like spring or number of springs.

But the remedy from the first was as easy and as open to intelligence as the tapping of a vein to prevent plethora. The lake, it is probable, was the centre and the cause of the swamp, as is proved by the streams flowing out of, instead of into, it. Its overflowing waters, when swelled by rains or springs, finding no natural channel of escape, rose foot by foot to the very lip of the cup, covering the beach and reaching the densely wooded shore.

In this way has been brought about the singular condition of the lake, which, instead of being the lowest, is the highest portion of the Dismal Swamp.